Goofy, Unimportant Stuff Ahead . . . .

Friday, November 30, 2012

This is huge to me, and silly to normal people, I know . . . but this blog is *about* me, so . . . . :-D

A long time ago a special friend gave me a beautiful gold charm. When I was visiting another friend, I came across a vendor selling gold chains from Turkey. I found one that I fell in love with and bought it, even though I couldn't really afford it at the time. So the charm married the chain. I had my daughter's baby ring, and over time acquired other charms from friends or during special trips. I didn't want to take the original charm off, and noticed that my Aunt always wore a chain with several charms on. So I just started adding the charms to my chain and wearing all of them. I wore them for years, never taking them off - ever. One day I grabbed the neck of my sweater wrong and broke the chain. The charms flew all over the place. I was devastated. Like a part of my was broken. I managed to find all of the charms - miracle! I gathered everything into a pocket in my purse - mistake.

I checked in at a couple of places about getting the chain fixed, but they wanted to charge more than the chain originally cost and I couldn't justify the expense at the time, so I went without my necklace - for years. At one point, I spilled everything out in my car and lost the most important charm. I always had an ache about losing it. You'd think you could let something like that go, but it never went away. I was sure it had gotten vacuumed up and was gone forever, so I had come to terms with the fact that it was gone - but still it hurt to have lost it.

Forward to several years later - I always have a stash of change in the bottom of my purse, in the console in my car, in the bottoms of drawers, etc. Every once in awhile I gather it all up into a big baggie that I have so that it's all in one place and not making my purse weigh 100 pounds. A couple of months ago I was going through the baggie to dig out some quarters - and FOUND MY CHARM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I don't know what happened, but somehow I scooped it up with the change from somewhere without ever noticing it.

In the meantime, I dropped all of the charms AGAIN (think I'd have a better system by now? - not . . .) and lost another important one . . . . And figured it was gone forever because I couldn't find it and there had been vacuuming 100 times since. Before company on Thanksgiving Day I was scrubbing the kitchen floor by hand and got down by the bottom of the cabinets and SAW SOMETHING SHINY!!!!! It was the last missing charm wedged at the edge of the tile by the dishwasher - MIRACLE!!!!!!!!!!!

So now I had all of my charms back together, but still had a broken chain. Wednesday I was running some errands and passed a jewelry store. I stopped in and they can fix my chain for $20!!!!!!!!!!!!! And put a gold ring on my charm (original was broken) for $20!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! So within a week or so, I'll have all my charms on their original chain and all of the pieces of me will be back together. :-D

In the meantime, all of the charms except the one being repaired are on a temporary chain, safely on my neck - waiting to be back where they belong.

In other news - DAY FOUR of no sweets, no fried, no alcohol!!! And staying in calorie limits.

I had multigrain bagels with peanut butter the last couple of days. I've noticed a little more of a struggle with carb cravings than on the day that I didn't have any bagel. I have half of a bagel left. I need to pay attention to see if the carb cravings ease off when I don't eat the bagel. Not intending to give up all my carbs, but if easing off them makes things easier, gotta do it, right? :::::::::::sigh::::::::::::

Back on club soda with lime and herbal tea at night - even at happy hour. :-D So far so good. Saves SO many calories . . . We'll see how it goes for the rest of the month. Hopefully big progress before Key West.

Haven't worked out in two days, but tonight will be a good one. And even with all the crazy this weekend, I'm going to try and get six miles in tomorrow and Sunday. Don't think I'll have time for ten, but we'll see. If I can be out the door by 7 tomorrow, I might be able to pull it off. I'll be doing day 2 and 3 of week 5 C25K tonight and on Sunday. Next week - moving on to week 6!!!!!! If I can keep it on track, I'm at week 9 the week of Christmas - and running 30 minutes solid while we're in Miami and Key West for the RAGNAR. I'm driving for the relay team and not running, but who knows, by the time they do Provincetown this spring, I might be able to be a runner. :-D

Not silly at all to be given stuff by friends and wanting to cherish it. So glad you found them all!! When I was living in a high crime neighborhood, my main floor apartment was broken into and my box of jewelry was taken -including a charm bracelet my Mom gave me when I turned 16 and she had added charms of every interest I had over the years. Never replaced it. Also in it were one of a kind beaded necklaces by First Nations people. What it was, just kids, but I had my stuff in an electronics carton and they must have thought it was something else. I spent all night looking over the neighborhood for it, figuring they would dump it when they saw it wasn't electronics. No luck though. they gained entry by lifting the screen out, oddly enough, that was never found either! These buildings were not very secure when you opened your windows for fresh air! No exercise for two days?? Even busy people have time to fit in 10 min segments here and there of anything -especially if they have internet access! Great work with the food! Tough dealing with those carb cravings :( Good luck with itand have a fantastic weekend!

"Rejoice with those who rejoice" - I am SO happy for you about that charm necklace! I am not very materialistic, but I AM sentimental. I can so identify with what you must have felt! What a blessing that you found them again!

Keep your goals reasonable - challenging enough but not so much that you injure yourself or feel deprived. Sound slike you're well on your way! Shel